Dual Output Power Management Unit for PV-Battery Hybrid Energy System

The tremendous evolution in the electronics industry has provided high performance portable devices. However, the high power demand and the limited capacity of batteries, prevent the devices from operating for a long time without the need of a power outlet. The ease of deploying Photovoltaic (PV) cells close to the device enables the user to harvest energy on the go, and get rid of the conventional power outlets. However, applying the PV power to the electronic devices is not as easy as the plug and play model, due to the unstable output voltage and power of the PV cells. In this thesis, a power management unit is proposed to provide dual regulated outputs using a PV module and a rechargeable battery. The main components of the unit are a Dual Input Multiple Output (DIMO) DC-DC converter and a digital controller. The converter is used to interface the battery and the PV module with the loads. Moreover, the proposed converter has the ability to step up or step down the input voltage. The controller maximizes the PV power using the fractional open circuit voltage Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) method. Furthermore, the controller manages the amount of power supplied to or from the battery in order to satisfy the load demand and regulate the outputs at the required levels. The controller has been implemented and synthesized using VHDL. A prototype has been implemented using an FPGA and off the shelf components. The functionality of the system has been tested and verified under varying environmental conditions

Novel Antenna Design Suitable For Evaporation Duct

This project investigates a design of antenna array that might be suitable for implementation in the evaporation duct. The design investigates a novel horn antenna array that can produce high gain over a narrow beam width. The novel design is to operate in duct environment via having marine grade protection. This design will be explore the physical unique properties of the evaporation duct and utilize it to establish long distance communication over the evaporation duct

Characterisation of metal organic frameworks for adsorption cooling

Silica gel/water adsorption cooling systems suffer from size, performance and cost limitations. Therefore, there is a need for new adsorbent materials that outperform silica gel. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are new micro-porous materials that have extraordinary porosity and uniform structure. Due to the lack of published data that characterise MOF/water adsorption, this paper experimentally investigates the adsorption characteristics of HKUST-1 (Cu-BTC (copper benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylate), C 18H 6Cu 3O 12) and MIL-100 (Fe-BTC (Iron 1,3,5- benzenetricarboxylate), C 9H 3FeO 6) MOFs compared to silica gel RD-2060. The adsorption characteristics of Silica gel RD-2060, HKUST-1 and MIL-100 were determined using an advanced gravimetric dynamic vapour sorption analyser (DVS). Results showed that HKUST-1 performed better than silica gel RD-2060 with an increase of water uptake of 93.2%, which could lead to a considerable increase in refrigerant flow rate, cooling capacity and/or reducing the size of the adsorption system. However, MIL-100 MOF showed reduced water uptake comparable to silica gel RD-2060 for water chilling applications with evaporation at 5 0C. These results highlight the potential of using MOF materials to improve the efficiency of water adsorption cooling systems

Numerical investigation of turbulent flow heat transfer and pressure drop of AL2O3/water nanofluid in helically coiled tubes

Passive convective heat transfer enhancement can be achieved by improving the thermo-physical properties of the working fluid, changing flow geometry or both. This work presents a numerical study to investigate the combined effect of using helical coils and nanofluids on the heat transfer characteristics and pressure losses in turbulent flow regime. The developed computational fluid dynamics models were validated against published experimental data and empirical correlations. Results have shown that combining the effects of alumina (Al2O3) nanoparticles and tube coiling could enhance the heat transfer coefficient by up to 60% compared with that of pure water in straight tube at the same Reynolds number. Also, results showed that the pressure drop in helical coils using Al2O3 nanofluid for volume fraction of 3% was six times that of water in straight tubes (80% of the pressure drop increase is due to nanoparticles addition), while the effect of Reynolds number on the pressure drop penalty factor was found to be insignificant

Effects of magnetic water and feeding rate on growth performance and immunity of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)

Objective: The present study was designed to investigate the effect of magnetic water treatment technique and different feeding rates on growth performance, feed utilization, water quality parameters, chemical composition and intestinal histomorphometric parameters of monosex Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus).Design: Experimental study with a factorial design.Fish: A total of 2880 apparently healthy monosex Nile tilapia (O. niloticus) with an average initial body weight of 69.86 ± 0.8 g were randomly distributed into 18 concreate ponds.Procedures: Experimental fish were fed on commercial diet (30.1% protein and 4600 Kcal GE/kg diet) based on three levels of feeding rate 3, 4 and 5% from fish biomass for both treated and control groups. Water was treated with magnetic waves at 0.2 Tesla (Tesla= 2000 Gauss) compared to the control group water (zero Tesla). Growth performance parameters, feed utilization, chemical composition and intestinal morphometric analysis were calculated in all groups at the end of the experiment after eight weeks.Results: The results indicated that growth performance, feed utilization and intestinal histomorphometric analyses improved significantly (P<0.01) in magnetic water groups compared to control groups at the three levels of feeding rate. In addition, water physicochemical parameters including Ammonia (NH4), Nitrate (NO3), Nitrite (NO2), PH and dissolved oxygen (DO) significantly improved in magnetic water treated groups at the three feeding rate levels.Conclusions and clinical relevance: In conclusion, magnetic treatment of water could improve water quality parameters, fish growth performance, feed utilization, and intestinal histomorphometric analyses at different feeding rate

Neutrosophic Adaptive LSB and Deep Learning Hybrid Framework for ECG Signal Classification

This paper proposes a novel hybrid framework for ECG signal classification and privacy preservation. The framework includes two phases: the first phase uses LSTM+CNN with attention gate for ECG classification, while the second phase utilizes adaptive least signal bit with neutrosophic for hiding important data during transmission. The proposed framework converts data into three sets of degrees (true, false, and intermediate) using neutrosophic and passes them to an embedding layer. In the sender part, the framework hides important data in ECG signal as true and false degrees, using the intermediate set as a shared dynamic key between sender and receiver. The receiver can reconstruct the important data using the shared dynamic key or the intermediate set. The proposed framework is more robust against attacks compared to other methods

The Influence of Pulse Shape on the Performance of a Mixed Flow Turbine for Turbocharger Applications

Engine downsizing allows automotive manufactures to achieve improved efficiency and reduce emissions. Turbocharging can increase the power density of the engine, and therefore plays a vital role in downsizing. Due to the nature of the reciprocating engine, a turbocharger turbine operates in a highly unsteady environment. This paper presents a computational investigation looking at the impact of pulse shape on the performance of a mixed flow turbine for turbocharger applications. While the impact of pulse frequency and amplitude on turbine unsteady performance has received significant attention in the past, little work has been done on the impact of the pulse shape. In the current study, four inlet pulse shapes have been investigated and shown to have a significant impact on turbine instantaneous performance, where efficiency and mass flow hysteresis varied significantly between test cases. This result shows for in-depth analyses of turbine flow physics and loss mechanisms, accurately modelling the inlet pulse shape is vital. The square pulse showed the most distinct impact with normalized cycle average efficiency decreasing by 1.37% and a 2.23% reduction in normalized stage MFP when compared to the sinusoidal wave. The variation in normalized cycle averaged stage efficiency was found to be less than 0.25% for the remaining three wave forms and the variation in normalized cycle averaged MFP less than 0.5%. This finding suggests that a simple sinusoidal wave form can be used for the majority of cycle-averaged performance comparisons

Novel Antenna Design Suitable For Evaporation Duct

This project investigates a design of antenna array that might be suitable for implementation in the evaporation duct. The design investigates a novel horn antenna array that can produce high gain over a narrow beam width. The novel design is to operate in duct environment via having marine grade protection. This design will be explore the physical unique properties of the evaporation duct and utilize it to establish long distance communication over the evaporation duct

Numerical Investigation of Copper Foam Adsorption Beds Packed with MOF-801 for Space Cooling and Desalination Applications

In this paper, an emerging Metal Organic Framework adsorbent MOF-801 packed into a recently developed copper foamed adsorbent-bed is numerically investigated under different operating conditions and physical parameters and benchmarked against the widely used silica gel adsorbent. A numerical model using lumped dynamic modelling approach was developed and validated against experimental data. An enhancement in the effective thermal conductivity for MOF-801 and silica gel foam packed bed and hence an improvement for the overall performance. The MOF-801-based system showed a higher performance for desalination application with a maximum production of specific daily water production of 13 m3/ton·day compared to 9 m3/ton·day for the silica gel-based system. MOF-801-based system evidenced its competition in the cooling application, achieving enhancement for the specific cooling power 140% higher than silica gel-based system

Graphene Enhanced Adsorption Desalination System

Currently almost one billion people across the world have no access to a safe potable drinking water. According to UN statistics, by 2030 the water demand will exceed the supply by 40%. This means that up to two-third of the world’s inhabited areas would be water stressed. There are currently no commercially available small scale water desalination / purification units that could serve small communities with critical needs for potable water. Most desalination and purification units are centralized and consume a large amount of energy which contributes to the overall carbon footprint. The research questions to be addressed by this project are: 1) Can new adsorbent systems be developed to allow efficient use of low grade energy for water desalination? 2) Can the technology be reduced in size of water desalination / purification units that to allow deployment on a small localised scale? 3) Could such a system utilise low grade, waste or renewable energy resources for a more sustainable environment? 4) How can sustainable water desalination units be produced that serve small communities at minimum installation and operational cost